UK Construction Output Slides in October

12 Dec 2014

LONDON, (Reuters) – British construction output suffered an unexpected sharp fall in October, even as growth in preceding months was revised up and handed a slight boost to overall economic growth in the third quarter.

Construction output fell 2.2 percent in October after rising by the same amount in September, the Office for National Statistics said on Friday.

That slowed year-on-year growth to 0.7 percent, its weakest since May 2013, when Britain’s housing market was starting a strong recovery.

Economists in a Reuters poll had expected 0.7 percent growth in monthly terms and 1.3 percent on the year.

On a three-monthly basis — which smooths out some of the volatility in the data — construction output growth slipped 0.3 percent.

However, there were sharp upward revisions to previous estimates of the construction industry’s growth.

Output in the sector in the third quarter rose 1.6 percent, compared with a previous estimate of 0.8 percent, which would boost British economic growth in the third quarter by 0.1 percentage points to 0.8 percent if all other components of GDP remained unchanged, the ONS said.